REVIEW: BlaBla Car

If you haven’t already heard of Blabla Car then you probably will soon, it’s essentially the uber of ride-sharing. If you are confused at the difference, Uber acts like a taxi picking you up when you want, whereas Blabla Car lets you book lifts with strangers who are going in a specific direction.

I had a meeting in Bristol today so I thought it was the perfect time to try out Blabla Car. I went online to their site and registered. It’s pretty slick and easy to use. I found a driver who was offering a lift back on the Friday afternoon (perfect) and booked. This was about 10 days in, and a few days later he cancelled, and I was refunded my money. Annoying but not the end of the world.

I found another driver — Nazir- again only driving back and booked — total cost £10. I couldn’t however find a lift down to Bristol, maybe because I needed to go at an odd time — Friday morning. So because of my weird schedule I had to catch the train which screwed up my economies because a return fair would have been cheaper than a one way and the Blabla Car (and I still had to get the tube at the end).

I am willing to admit that being a first time user, and also not being too au fait with London I did myself a disservice. I did get a ride up to London but ended up still an hour away (and two tube rides) from home. My advice check where your driver is going and make sure it’s on your route.

Anyway for the good of the experiment I took the ride with Nazir, in his bright yellow Audi. You can message the driver with questions through the Blabla Car site and once you have booked and the driver has accepted you get their contact details just before your ride. I spoke with Nazir about where to be picked up and he came and got me from a location which was great. The other passenger Alex also met us there.

So I get in the car. I find out Nazir and Alex know each other as they are both commuting up to London from Bristol and Alex has hitched a ride with Nazir before. They both see it becoming a regular thing. Nazir drives to basically pay his gas, Alex rides because it’s cheaper than the train and the coaches take too long.

On the ride we talk about Blabla Car, the Middle East and of course my experiment. Nazir thinks it’s mad and hasn’t heard of Airbnb or couch surfing. I keep finding this. People who are heavy users of one sharing economy platform but don’t know about any of the others.

All in all my journey was great and I would definitely do it again but next time paying a little more attention to the drop off point.

But other things to note. I asked the guys about the relationships they formed with people that they regularly ride with and it seems a lot have turned into friendships. Beers after work that kind of thing. Interestingly Alex also mentioned that he had an instance of booking a ride and the driver cancelling for no reason. Alex had suspicions that maybe it was because he was a guy, that people were using it to score dates. I’m not sure how much evidence he had to base that on but I do find it interesting especially after my couch-surfing experience. It seems sometimes these platforms start innocently enough but end up being places where people just trawl for dates.

Anyway in terms of ease of use and experience it was pretty great, and I would definitely do it again.